DistroWatch Weekly

A weekly opinion column and a summary of events from the distribution world

DistroWatch Weekly

DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 788, 5 November 2018

Welcome to this year's 45th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Eventually, regardless of how well they are put together, computer systems fail. A hard drive dies or a kernel update goes wrong and then the user is left to try to recover the pieces. There are many Linux-based solutions for recovering files and fixing broken systems and this week we look at Clu Linux Live, a Debian-based live CD for data recovery. Read on to learn more about Clu and its utilities. In our News section we talk about efforts to modernize the look of the Cinnamon desktop and Steam's increasing support for running Windows games on Linux distributions. Plus we share end of life reminders for version 27 of Fedora and Korora. We also link to an update from the Solus project as its members reorganize, and share plans to drop Btrfs and KDE Plasma support from future versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Our Questions and Answers column this week deals with RAM consumption and how to handle misbehaving programs. Plus we aid in the search for distributions which support older CPUs. Last week we talked about IBM buying Red Hat and, now that the deal is done, we ask our readers to respond in our Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to bring you coverage of last week's releases and share the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!

Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (20MB) and MP3 (15MB) formats.

Feature Story (by Jesse Smith)

Clu Linux Live 6.0

Clu Linux Live is a Debian-based distribution which "provides various processing command line utilities (CLU) and data rescue tools which can be used on a wired or wireless network." The distribution provides a live CD that will automatically set up Samba network shares and the OpenSSH service to help users rescue files off a computer. The distribution also features such data recovery tools as ddrescue and Clonezilla.

Clu Linux Live is based on Debian 9 and is built for 32-bit x86 computers. The distribution will run on 64-bit processors too and, given the nature of the utilities included, there should be no practical drawbacks to Clu being 32-bit only.

The project's ISO for version 6.0 is approximately 420MB in size. Booting from the ISO brings up boot menu where we can opt to launch the distribution in regular or safe graphics mode. We can also load the distribution entirely into RAM in case we want to remove the boot media.

When the distribution finishes booting we are shown a text console where we are greeted by a series of prompts. The first one asks us to set a password for the root account. The second prompt asks if we would like to mount all attached storage devices. Later we will be told there is a command which will reverse this action, unmounting all hard drives and other attached storage volumes. The next two prompts ask if we would like to start the Samba and OpenSSH network services. These two services can be used to transfer files off the computer and, in the case of OpenSSH, it allows us to remotely manage a cloning or recovery process over the network.

Utilities

The user is then presented with a command line prompt where we are logged in as the root user. Clu does not ship with a graphical interface so we need to be comfortable navigating the command line. The usual collection of GNU programs are included, along with the screen utility for running jobs in the background - typically over OpenSSH. The distribution also provides us with data rescue and copying tools such as ddrescue and Clonezilla. Disk manipulation programs, including cfdisk and parted, are also featured. There are tools such as cryptsetup and ecrypts for accessing encrypted volumes. The 6.0 release of Clu ships with systemd as the default init software and runs on Linux 4.9.

The software included with Clu is mostly standard recovery and disk manipulation tools. These are tried and true utilities and I ran through testing a handful of them to confirm they would work with no surprises. I was not disappointed. The only serious issue I ran into while using Clu was that the distribution does not include any manual pages. If we were dealing with graphical rescue tools this might not matter as much, but several of the utilities included in Clu have command line options and not having a local reference complicates matters. The project's website suggests people can perform web searches to find examples, but this means we either need to make use of the less-than-convenient text-based elinks web browser (included with Clu) or have a second computer/device for looking up examples while sitting at Clu's terminal. Neither option particularly appeals to me, compared with the convenience of local manual pages.

Another quirk of Clu is that the root user's home directory is located at /media instead of the traditional /root location. The /root directory still exists and is populated with profile configuration files, but we are placed in /media by default - probably to make accessing mounted volumes just a little quicker. This is not a problem, just unusual.

Hardware

Clu is a very lightweight distribution. When run without any background services, the operating system uses about 22MB of RAM. When run with Samba and OpenSSH started, the distribution still only consumes 30MB of RAM. Since the system is quite small, even when loaded entirely into RAM, the distribution uses up less than 1GB of memory.

One feature of Clu which I appreciated was that the distribution will automatically detect if our computer has a wireless network card. If one is detected, the system will offer to scan for local wi-fi networks and let us select which network we would like to connect to. Then the system prompts us for a password and sets up the connection, getting an IP address automatically via DHCP. This makes it easier to rescue files off a laptop and send them to another computer on the network.

Conclusions

I do not think there is much Clu Linux Live does which sets it apart from other disk management and data rescue distributions. The included tools are fairly standard and the Debian base is pleasantly predictable. The included tools all work and the distribution is certainly useful, it just does not have much which makes it stand out from the pack of existing rescue CDs. In other words, it offers a mostly good experience in a field of good tools.

My only real complaint about Clu was it doesn't ship with manual pages. And I would have liked to have had access to the photorec recovery tool, but that can be installed from the Debian repositories assuming we have a network connection.

On the positive side, everything works as expected. The distribution automates some important pieces (like activating OpenSSH and connecting to wireless networks). This, along with the small collection of default tools, makes Clu pleasantly predictable and useful.

* * * * *

Hardware used in this review

My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:

Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU

Display: Intel integrated video

Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive

Memory: 6GB of RAM

Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast

Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card

* * * * *

Visitor supplied rating

Clu Linux Live has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8/10 from 1 review(s).
Have you used Clu Linux Live? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.

Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith)

Mint modernizes Cinnamon, Steam supports more Windows games running on Linux, Fedora & Korora 27 near their end of life, Red Hat dropping KDE support, update from the Solus team

The Linux MintMonthly Newsletter for October talks about a number of visual changes coming to the distribution, particularly the Cinnamon desktop environment. Cinnamon 4.0 will offer a theme with a slightly higher contrast and a larger panel. "By default, Cinnamon will feature a dark large 40px panel, where icons look crisp everywhere, and where they scale in the left and center zones but are restricted to 24px on the right (where we place the system tray and status icons). This new look, along with the new workflow defined by the grouped window list, make Cinnamon feel much more modern than before. We hope you'll enjoy this new layout, we're really thrilled with it, and if you don't that's OK too. We made sure everyone would be happy. As you go through the First Steps section of the Linux Mint 19.1 welcome screen, you'll be asked to choose your favourite desktop layout." Examples of the new visual elements are included in the newsletter.

* * * * *

People who run the Steam gaming portal on Linux received some good news this week. Following the news in August that Valve was making it possible for Linux users to run some Windows gaming titles through a WINE fork called Proton, the collection of games Linux users can run has expanded rapidly. "Proton is a new tool released by Valve Software that has been integrated with Steam Play to make playing Windows games on Linux as simple as hitting the Play button within Steam. Underneath the hood, Proton comprises other popular tools like Wine and DXVK among others that a gamer would otherwise have to install and maintain themselves. This greatly eases the burden for users to switch to Linux without having to learn the underlying systems or losing access to a large part of their library of games." The ProtonDB website now lists over 2,600 Windows games which can be run on Linux using a combination of Steam and the Proton compatibility software.

* * * * *

The Korora distribution is based on Fedora and, with the scheduled end of life of Fedora 27 approaching, the Korora team would like to remind everyone to upgrade to newer versions of both distributions. "As Korora uses Fedora as the base for our distribution we follow the Fedora Project's life cycle. Consequently Korora 27 will reach its End Of Life status on the 27th of November. Although there was no Korora 27 release it was possible to upgrade to 27 and many people did that. We advise our users to upgrade to the community released Korora 28 as soon as possible. Systems that still have K27 installed will no longer receive any security updates after the EOL date and are considered to be vulnerable." The project provides upgrade instructions for migrating to Korora 28.

* * * * *

Red Hat announced the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.6 on October 31. Apart from the usual package updates and security improvements, there were a number of notable depreciations in the release notes. Some of them were expected and have been mentioned before, such as the migration to Python 3 and the plan to drop Python 2 from future major versions of RHEL. The Sendmail mail service is being replaced by Postfix and Btrfs (an advanced file system) will not be offered in future major versions of RHEL. Future versions will also drop support for KDE Plasma, suggesting Red Hat plans to streamline its support coverage: "KDE Plasma Workspaces (KDE), which has been provided as an alternative to the default GNOME desktop environment has been deprecated. A future major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux will no longer support using KDE instead of the default GNOME desktop environment."

* * * * *

Last month we shared news from the Solus team when they reported they had been out of contact with Solus founder Ikey Doherty. The team has been making progress, regaining access to some of the project's accounts and planning for the distribution's future. A detailed status update is available in a Solus blog post.

Another update comes from the Phoronix website which has published a letter reportedly from Doherty in which he supports the passing of the leadership from himself to the rest of the Solus team: "I'd like to start out by thanking the Solus team for all their hard work and passion over the years. By way of response to their recent blog post, I in no way see what they've done as a 'hostile takeover', rather, a natural evolution of the project. The truth is, the Solus project has stood on its own merit and feet for a long time, and has moved under it's own steam. For a long time I had said that I was merely the first settler in the town that would become Solus, and in time it would need it's own architects, planners and mayor."

Dealing-with-memory-consumption asks: I keep running into issues with my distro using up all my memory. After about a day my 8GB of RAM is almost entirely used up. How can I find out which program is to blame?

DistroWatch answers: Before you go looking for the program which is consuming all of your memory, first I recommend checking to see if your system really is running low on memory. A lot of memory monitoring tools display how much RAM is being used without any distinction for how it is being used. On Linux, memory consumption is typically divided into two types: memory being used by applications (like the desktop and your web browser), and memory that is caching file data for quick access.

The difference is important because memory which is just caching file data, saving the operating system from reading data from the disk, can be discarded and used for something else whenever more memory is needed for applications. Technically, the RAM is being used, but it's still available for other tasks.

In contrast, memory which is being used by an application cannot be used for something else. The operating system needs to either move the application's data to swap space or kill the application if it needs that memory space back.

To check how RAM is being used, open a terminal and run the command "free -m". This will show you six columns with different memory states:

total

used

free

shared

buff/cache

available

Mem:

5440

2729

1509

72

1201

2406

We are primarily interested in three of these columns: Total, Used, and Available. The Total column tells us how much memory is physically in your computer. The Used column shows how much is consumed by applications. The Available field lets us know how much memory can still be used by more applications. Most memory reporting tools tend to show how much memory is used by applications and cached combined, but this is misleading. We really only need to worry about memory consumption from applications, which is what causes the Available field to shrink. What we consider "running low" on memory may vary a bit, but you are probably safe as long as you have around 500MB of space listed in the Available column.

Now, with all that being said, while memory consumption worries are usually a result of over-simplified reporting tools, it is possible for applications to use up too much RAM. To identify the culprit, run the "top" command from the command line and then press Shift and the M key (Shift+M). This will sort processes in order of their memory usage, with the worst offenders on top. The name of the command will be in the far-right column. Closing the offending program will free up your RAM for use elsewhere.

* * * * *

Reviving-older-equipment asks: I found an older computer that looks like it's from the mid-90s. It was running Windows, but I'd like to try running Linux on it, but most distros only support i686 and up. How can I find distros with i586 support?

DistroWatch answers: While support for x86 processors older than i686 is rare these days, there are a few Linux distributions which still claim to support i486 and i586 systems. The Mageia family of distributions still reportedly offer i586 support, as does Tiny Core Linux. I think the antiX distribution does too. You can find others on our Search page.

While the above two options are probably the easiest to try to get running, you may also be interested in trying one of the BSDs. I think both OpenBSD and NetBSD will still run on processors from the 1990s.

Kali Linux is a Debian-based distribution with a collection of security and forensics tools. The project's latest release is Kali Linux 2018.4 which includes one significant new tool and an experimental 64-bit build for Raspberry Pi computers: "Welcome to our fourth and final release of 2018, Kali Linux 2018.4, which is available for immediate download. This release brings our kernel up to version 4.18.10, fixes numerous bugs, includes many updated packages, and a very experimental 64-bit Raspberry Pi 3 image. We have only added one new tool to the distribution in this release cycle but it’s a great one. Wireguard is a powerful and easy to configure VPN solution that eliminates many of the headaches one typically encounters setting up VPNs. Check out our Wireguard post for more details on this great addition." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement.

Manjaro Linux is a rolling release distribution based on Arch Linux. The project has published a new stable release, Manjaro Linux 18.0. The new release runs version 4.19 of the Linux kernel, which is a long term support kernel. There have been a number of fixes to the Pamac package manager and updates to the Manjaro Settings Manager. "Kernel 4.19 LTS is used for this release, such as the latest drivers available to date. Relative to the last installation media release, our tools have been improved and polished. The Manjaro Settings Manager (MSM) now provides an easy-to-use graphical interface for installing and removing the many series of kernels we offer. Manjaro's selection of readily available kernels remains the most extensive of all Linux distribution we know of. At the time of this release, eight kernel-series are available directly from our binary repositories, ranging from the mature & rock-solid 3.16 series to the latest 4.19 release. Additionally we offer three realtime kernel series. Such a wide array of available kernel options results in extensive hardware support, getting the most out of your system for you, be it old or new." Further information can be found in a release announcement on the project's forum.

José Antonio Calvo has announced the release of Zentyal Server 6.0, a major new update of the project's Ubuntu-based distribution designed for easy deployments as a server. The new Zentyal build upgrades the underlying system to Ubuntu's latest long-term supported release, version 18.04: "The Zentyal development team is proud to announce Zentyal Server 6.0, a new release of the Zentyal open-source Linux server with native Microsoft Active Directory interoperability. Zentyal Server 6.0 is based on the latest Ubuntu Sever 18.04.1 LTS and it comes with the most recent versions of the integrated software. Most important new features and improvements include: Linux 4.15 kernel with support for most recent hardware; Samba 4.7; new RADIUS module; new Virtualization Manager module. In addition, this new major version comes with important bug fixes and usability improvements, especially in the core, the installer and also in OpenVPN and anti-virus modules. Packages for Zentyal 5.x will be released in the next days, providing the upgrade button on the dashboard." See the brief release announcement and the detailed changelog for further information.

Matthew Miller has announced the release of Fedora 29. The project's latest version is being published almost exactly 15 years after Fedora Core 1 was released and is available in many editions and spins for multiple architectures. "This release is particularly exciting because it’s the first to include the Fedora Modularity feature across all our different variants. Modularity lets us ship different versions of packages on the same Fedora base. This means you no longer need to make your whole OS upgrade decisions based on individual package versions. For example, you can choose Node.js version 8 or version 10, on either Fedora 28 or Fedora 29. Or you can choose between a version of Kubernetes which matches OpenShift Origin, and a module stream which follows the upstream. Other big changes include GNOME 3.30 on the desktop, ZRAM for our ARM images, and a Vagrant image for Fedora Scientific." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.

Red Hat, a Linux company freshly acquired by IBM, has announced the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.6. This is the latest update of the Linux distribution product targeted for deployments on bare-metal, virtual, containerised, private and public clouds. As usual, the new version comes with several security enhancements, including a brand-new "Trusted Platform Module": "IT security remains a constant, key challenge for many IT departments, and one that does not get easier in complex hybrid and multicloud environments. To better answer these IT security needs, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 introduces Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 hardware modules as part of Network Bound Disk Encryption (NBDE). This provides two layers of security for hybrid cloud operations to help keep information on disks physically more secure: The network-based mechanism (NBDE) provides security across networked environments, while TPM works on-premise to add an additional layer, tying disks to specific physical systems. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 also makes it easier to manage firewalls with enhancements to nftables, simplifying the configuration of counterintrusion measures and giving operations teams more visibility into these mechanisms." See the company's press release and the detailed release notes for more information.

Jerry Bezencon has announced the release of Linux Lite 4.2, the latest build of the project's desktop-oriented distribution with Xfce, based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. This release sees an addition of Redshift, an application that adjusts the computer display's colour temperature based upon the time of day: "Linux Lite 4.2 final is now available for download and installation. This release has a number of minor changes. Think of it as 'refinement' and not a 'major upgrade'. There are some new wallpapers and some minor tweaks here and there. Redshift has been added to Lite Software. Redshift adjusts the color temperature according to the position of the sun. A different color temperature is set during night and daytime. During twilight and early morning, the color temperature transitions smoothly from night to daytime temperature to allow your eyes to slowly adapt. At night the color temperature should be set to match the lamps in your room. This is typically a low temperature at around 3000K - 4000K (default is 3700K). During the day, the color temperature should match the light from outside, typically around 5500K - 6500K (default is 5500K)." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information and screenshots.

The GhostBSD team have announced a new release, GhostBSD 18.10, which is the first stable version from the project to use TrueOS instead of FreeBSD as the operating system's base. The new version also adopts LibreSSL over OpenSSL, removes the GRUB boot loader in favour of FreeBSD's loader and the operating system uses ZFS as the default file system. "What has changed since 11.1: GhostBSD is now built from TrueOS instead of FreeBSD. OpenRC is GhostBSD main init system. LibreSSL is the default SSL. GhostBSD base system can now be upgraded to the next release via TrueOS packages base. We removed GRUB from the ISO in favor of the new FreeBSD hybrid loader. NetworkMgr now supports the option to manage multiple network card connection. Unionfs was removed from the live session. The live system has been rewritten to fix many issues. GhostBSD boots directly to MATE session. GhostBSD supports ZFS BE by default. FreeBSD ports and packages are incompatible with GhostBSD 18.10. GhostBSD uses TrueOS ports to build packages." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement.

Pardus has announced the release of Pardus 17.4, an updated build of the project's Debian-based distribution set for desktops and servers. Like the previous releases in the 17.x series, this one also comes in two desktop variants featuring either Xfce or the Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE). It offers various improvements as well as stability and security updates for more than 300 packages. Updated software include Firefox 60.3.0, Thunderbird 60.2.1, VLC 3.0.3 and LibreOffice 6.1.3. The OpenSSH server package in now installed by default. Other changes include: improved performance due to package optimisations; fixes to various bugs that some users encountered in graphical interfaces; fixes to installation without Internet that previously resulted in post-installation corruption of resource lists; changed the default background of the start-up screen. Existing Pardus users do not need to download this release as all updates have already been applied to their systems. See the release announcement and release notes (both resources are in Turkish only) for further information.

Lorenzo Faletra has announced the release of Parrot 4.3, a new stable build of the project's Debian-based distribution with a collection of utilities for penetration testing, digital forensics, programming and privacy protection: "Parrot 4.3 is now available for download. This release provides security and stability updates and is the starting point for our plan to develop an LTS edition of Parrot. Changes: Linux kernel has been updated to the 4.18.10 version; Firefox 63 provides noticeable security and privacy features, but it is no longer available for 32-bit systems, so we switched to Firefox ESR on all the unsupported architectures. WINE menu - we have fixed a bug in the Parrot menu configuration that prevented several menu categories to show up; the Parrot .bashrc file has been updated, now it provides better snap support, the ll alias now shows the size in a human readable format and it does no longer overwrite some global settings as it used to do before; OpenJDK 11 is now the default Java provider; Anonsurf has received important stability upgrades and now it does not mess up the DNS configuration; new Parrot icons...." Continue to the release announcement for more details and upgrade instructions.

The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.

Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.

Last week we mentioned IBM is purchasing Red Hat, the world's most profitable commerical Linux company. Since then there have been a lot of predictions for the result being positive (strengthening IBM's and Red Hat's presence on cloud deployments), and many worries about what this will mean for Red Hat, and the projects it sponsors such as CentOS and Fedora.

We would like to hear what you think of IBM acquiring Red Hat. Do you see it as a net positive or negative for the Linux community?

You can see the results of our previous poll on Lubuntu's switch from LXDE to LXQt in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.

This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 12 November 2018. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:

Tuquito was a Ubuntu-based distribution and live CD made in Argentina. It features automatic hardware detection, excellent support for scanners, web cams and digital cameras, and compatibility with MS Office file formats. It was designed for beginners and intermediate Linux users.